


A Chemical Defect

by thesignsofserbia



Series: A Study in Nightmares [6]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Dreams and Nightmares, Gen, M/M, POV John Watson, PTSD Sherlock, Post-Reichenbach, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Scars, Sentiment, Sherlock Holmes and Feelings, Sherlock-centric
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-13
Updated: 2015-12-13
Packaged: 2018-05-06 11:12:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,178
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5414663
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thesignsofserbia/pseuds/thesignsofserbia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It would be a truly special thing to behold, to get an insight into that complicated head of his, just to see what it might be like in practice; being The World’s Only Conducting Detective.</p>
<p>Sherlock’s mind must be beautiful, definitely dangerous, but John thrived on danger, and while seeing it would probably render him braindead in less than a minute, even with the risk of losing his mind hanging over his head; if given the opportunity, he doesn’t imagine how he could possibly say no.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Chemical Defect

**Author's Note:**

> A sort of character study that I found in my fragments folder, with another ongoing fic intended for this series, and I thought it a good fit.

 

They’re lounging in their chairs on a normal (‘insipidly dull and hateful’) Sunday afternoon and Sherlock is ranting about the failings of humanity and how, in explicit detail, sentiment will lead to the fall of mankind.

  
“Ah yes,” John snorts sarcastically, “Caring will be the doom of us all; not nuclear weapons, antibiotic resistant disease, religious hatred, or even the bloody Americans, but sentiment.”

  
“Exactly! Ugh.” Sherlock agrees, deliberately failing to acknowledge that John is taking the piss, flopping back down onto the sofa, all gangly limbs, arms splayed out all over the place.

  
Just seconds later he’s up again, pacing the carpet into oblivion; bored.

  
John shakes his head, laughing silently into his paper.

  
“ _Sentiment_ ,” John sneers, in an admittedly poor impression, “Human emotion; Sherlock Holmes’ mortal enemy!”

  
Sherlock’s eyes narrow into slits at John making fun of him, and swirling his dressing gown theatrically, he curls up impossibly, somehow managing to fold his lanky frame into a ball on that poor chair of his.

  
How he can be so graceful and cat-like all of the time when he’s six foot, thin as a rake and about 90% limb is beyond John. He’s practically a skeleton actually, come to think of it, has he lost weight again? John needs to monitor it more closely.

  
Sherlock is boring holes into the carpet with his eyes sullenly, affecting the atmosphere of the whole flat, expanding his black cloud into the rest of the room, deliberately making his mood impossible not to notice. John’s not sure quite how he does it, but Sherlock’s presence has always commanded the attention in a room, from the moment he sweeps through the door.

  
John rolls his eyes, and scans the news for anything that will rescue them from the impending sulk of epic proportions. Sherlock hasn’t slept in days and it’s not doing any favours to the atmosphere of the flat.

  
Sherlock’s childish and petty grumblings don’t really annoy him that much anymore; he must be at least partially immune to his flatmate’s tantrums by now. Well, yes; it’s still exasperating most of the time, and it gets old pretty fast, but it no longer riles him up to the point where he has to storm out for a while to calm himself down.

  
In fact, sometimes John thinks he’s even fond of it.

  
Unless Sherlock has one of those days where he deliberately does everything in his power to inconvenience John, Sherlock knows how to push all of John’s buttons, and it’s enough to make his blood pressure spike off the charts.

  
But at least this way he knows it’s benign. As long as Sherlock’s bored in the dramatic-sulking-and-seeking-attention way it’s fine, it’s only when he gets quiet and lethargic that he has to worry.

  
~

  
Ever since his return, John gets the feeling that Sherlock wants to ask him a question, or say something important, but he always stops short.

  
He’ll catch Sherlock staring at him, which is nothing new, the man’s intimidation-tactic-glares, vacant mind palace you-just-happen-to-be-in-my-line-of-sight staring, and piercing deductive stares can all be pretty unpleasant and unnerving as hell, but he’s used to them. He’s even used to Sherlock just staring at him with a brutal sharpness for absolutely no discernible reason.

  
But this doesn’t feel like that, because he looks away as if caught, not in embarrassment, just- well, John isn’t sure there are words in the English language (or any other language for that matter) to explain Sherlock Holmes.

  
It reminds him of that time really early on in their living together when Sherlock had one of the most intense food cravings John has ever seen, and hopefully ever will.

  
Sherlock hadn’t even been able to pin down what the food was at first. He’d acted like his life depended on consuming it and he could barely think straight because for some reason his brain was demanding it so insistently, but he hadn’t a bloody clue what it was.   


Even the smallest things seem to wreak havoc on that perceptive mind of his.

  
The only thing John could think of that came close to the sensation Sherlock had described was having a really pathetic cough, with a tickle in your throat that won’t go away, or being constantly right on the verge of sneezing, only amplified.

  
Those 5 days had been hell on earth until Sherlock had figured it out. John has never seen anyone eat that much beetroot, and he doubts the man will ever touch it again, having consumed enough for about 6 life times in a week.

  
Sherlock requires something from John, quite urgently it seems, but he can’t place it. Sherlock doesn’t know what it is that he needs.   
  
  
How do you even begin to help a man who doesn’t know how to be helped?

  
John watches Sherlock struggle with this non-entity, and get nowhere. He wishes that there was something he could do.

  
This not-staring has been going on for a couple of weeks now and it’s starting to freak him out.

  
Sherlock is visibly frustrated and conflicted, so as a result is noticeably more irritable than usual, and his behaviour even stranger, as it always is when he is in the midst of trying to solve a particularly abstract problem, taking his frustration out on Mrs Hudson's walls.

  
Sherlock, John muses, is like a cat in many ways; he’s elegant, arrogant, agile and self-centred. His movements are fluid in a strangely feline sort of way, can be endearing when he wants to, he scratches when provoked, his presence adds significant value to your life, and, if domesticated, he can be your best friend.

  
The parallel that really counts is how Sherlock reacts when he’s hurting.

  
If you accidentally step on a cat’s paw, the animal will screech at you, making a god awful noise, and then hold a grudge, acting as if everything bad that has ever happened is your fault and you hurt it on purpose. Minimal injury results in angry public sulking. With cats this makes you feel horribly guilty, but with a grown man…not so much.

  
But when cats are seriously ill or injured, then that is where it all goes wrong, because it can often be hard to tell, they don’t like to show it. A cat will make a fuss out of little things that hurt their pride, but when it’s something major they will secrete themselves away to lick and tend to their wounds in private; injured and frightened, they won’t seek the help they need, or trust those who assist them, even if they die as a result. At heart they are still independent wild animals.

  
Sherlock has been different lately, maybe even since he got back, it’s well disguised, but John gets the distinct impression that something is not right; that he’s wounded.

  
It doesn’t shine through glaringly which makes it that much easier to miss, it’s so subtle that it’s taken John a while to even notice; far too long, though in his defence his best friend has just come back from the dead.

  
~

  
“And just why do you think that is, hmm?”

  
John startles slightly, looking up in confusion, Sherlock is looking at him expectantly and somewhat cautiously out of the corner of his eye, like he knows this conversation has the potential to go spectacularly wrong, but he’s testing the waters.

  
He’s hesitant, seeming uncharacteristically unsure of himself, he wants to have the conversation, but he’s reluctant to expose himself somehow.

  
_Interesting_

  
The doubt is quickly replaced by exasperated reproach when he sees the no doubt clueless look that John must be sporting.

  
Sherlock growls and throws his head back incredulously, sharing a knowing look with the skull about how trying it is living with someone so _thick,_ as if he thinks a skull would better grasp what he’s saying on an intellectual level than John; an actual human being. He probably _does_ too, the git.

  
Damn thing doesn’t have ears, or a _brain,_ so why does he feel like they’re ganging up on him? He’s been living with Sherlock too long, maybe he’s finally gone around the twist.

  
He’d forgotten that he does this, continuing on with conversations John had long thought dead, out of nowhere, completely without context, and for no discernible reason, well, at least not one apparent to John…or any other sane individual for that matter.

  
To make matters worse, Sherlock frequently neglects to actually vocalise half (or sometimes all) of the conversation in the first place, having started it in his head and forgotten that he needed to actually open his damn mouth for the words to come out, and thus warrant a response.  
  


John may act as his sounding board on occasions, but that doesn’t mean that John will necessarily _hear_ or reply to any of the conversations being bounced back off him.

  
Instead Sherlock assumes that John should be able to read his mind or something. And when he realises John _hasn’t_ followed his train of thought via psychic link, he just _looks_ at him like John is an incompetent fool, and it’s unbelievable that John can’t get his act together and keep up with every one of his hyperactive thought processes at the flick of a switch.

  
He’s starting to think that as far as the skull goes, he’s a poor replacement.

  
The conversation that Sherlock has resurrected could be about any number of things, whatever they’d been talking about, and if the words ever actually _had_ happened out aloud at all, it could have been _months_ ago.

  
He’s sure it’s all perfectly straightforward to the resident alien in the room, but to everyone else in the world, any meaning it held may as well be written in the invisible hieroglyphs of some tiny extinct culture, half way across the globe.

  
Who knew how Sherlock Holmes’ mind worked? Certainly not John.

  
There were probably scientists lined up around the world who wanted to study that brain. It probably wouldn’t translate to a normal person even if someone could read the bastards mind, it was operating on too foreign a wavelength to be understood or followed logically by a humble human being like _John_. He wouldn’t understand a word.

  
Still, it would be a truly special thing to behold, to get an insight into that complicated head of his, just to see what it might be like in practice; being The World’s Only Conducting Detective.

  
So many thoughts at once; so many observations, memories, deductions, and ideas; zipping about at once all over the place. He’d once said it must be relaxing, not being him, and John didn’t doubt it for a second.

  
If he could take a glimpse, he’d probably be blinded by the sudden rush of light and sound, pass out from the sudden influx of data, brain overloading, not able to contain that much information.

  
Or more likely, he’d be driven mad by the incomprehensible psychedelic vortex that was probably tucked away in there, but he still reckons it’d be worth a look.

  
It’d be some experience, nothing short of mind-blowingly extraordinary with a side of spectacularly loud and intense.

  
Sherlock’s mind must be beautiful, _definitely_ dangerous, but John thrived on danger, and while seeing it would probably render him braindead in less than a minute, even with the risk of losing his mind hanging over his head; if given the opportunity, he doesn’t imagine how he could possibly say no.

  
It occurs to him belatedly, that maybe it _wouldn't_ be all that fantastic to be him, considering everything that goes with it, Sherlock definitely isn't what you'd call a _happy_ person, after all. Maybe it's actually _awful_ , to live in that state constantly, maybe it's not something he'd want at all, and he wonders, if he asked him, whether Sherlock would agree.

  
Sherlock is still sending him a withering look, waiting for him to engage, but his head is tilted; curious, like he’s seen something fascinating in the content of John’s thoughts, and for a split second it seems like Sherlock is the one who wishes he could read _John’s_ mind.

  
Then he’s back to the important business of reminding John of his genius.

  
“Why do I think what, Sherlock?”

_  
Here we go._

  
But Sherlock doesn’t take this as a provocation or continue to shout his displeasure from the rooftops, and there is no potentially stroke inducing eye-rolling. Sherlock just sighs and looks at him slightly guardedly.

  
He clears his throat, still only half looking at John.

  
“Why do you suppose it is that I dislike sentiment so much, what is your theory?”

  
Oh.

  
“I dunno,” John answers truthfully, “I’ve never really given it much thought to be honest, just you being _you_.”

  
Sherlock sits up and looks at him, frowning.

  
“What’s that supposed to mean?”

  
“Nothing, I didn’t mean it a bad way, you’re just different, you think about things…differently.”

  
Sherlock’s eyes narrow.

  
“So I’m not allowed to be normal?” Sherlock sounds annoyed and defensive, like he’s ever wanted to be anything _but_ abnormal.

  
“No,” John frowns. This conversation is getting strange, _fast_. “That’s not what I’m saying, of course you’re _allowed_ to be normal, it’s just most the time you’re…well, you’re not; you’re brilliant, extraordinary.”

  
“Hmm,” Sherlock nods, relaxing marginally and settling his gaze back on the ceiling, satisfied with John’s answer.

  
It’s like John has passed some kind of test; levelled up in the conversation to gain access to the rest of it. John observes Sherlock, stretched out on the couch in his thinking pose, he’s not looking at John but that doesn’t disguise the fact that all of Sherlock’s attention is focussed on him.

  
Sherlock is still deducing John, his senses still hyper aware of his every movement, it’s kind of unsettling, and though John is certainly used to that sort of focus by now, it’s odd because Sherlock doesn't usually try to disguise it.

  
“So think about it then; why?”

  
Sherlock is pushing him to understand, and this part is familiar, this is the bit where John runs in circles, struggling feebly to observe, to notice the clues and draw some semblance of a conclusion. Then Sherlock will roll his eyes, take apart John’s deductions in under a minute and proceed to point out everything he got wrong.

  
It’s an exercise, like Sherlock asking his opinion at a crime scene, when he unfailingly gets it all backwards, missing everything of importance.

  
He’s never sure if Sherlock is trying to coach him, to hone John’s own observational skills, or if he just likes showing off, but he always insists that an outside perspective is very useful to him, though he tends to rip apart those whose opinions he did not ask for, which is kind of contradictory.

  
Only one outside perspective is deemed useful; John’s, His so called ‘conductor of light.’

  
In this case though, John can’t see the objective, what is Sherlock trying to show him, what does he want John to deduce from him? How is he even supposed to go about deducing Sherlock Holmes?

  
Sherlock deliberately keeps himself closed off to the outside world, Sherlock sees through everyone and everything in seconds, but it’s a one way mirror.

  
John has no idea what Sherlock thinks, what he feels or doesn’t feel, and Sherlock must know this, that everyone else can’t read him the way he reads them. So why is he asking the impossible of John, without giving him anything to go on, what does he expect to get out of this?

  
John sighs.

  
“I don’t know Sherlock, I really don’t. Because it makes people do stupid things? Because it’s irrelevant? I haven’t the slightest idea how you think.”

  
He's expecting the response; _"Well try to_ ," but it doesn't come.

  
Instead, Sherlock seems to find this troubling, and John’s certain that it was not the answer he was looking for.

  
“But you _know_ _me,”_ Sherlock prompts quietly, with a strange sort of urgency.

  
Do I? _Do I really?_ John thinks to himself, privately wondering if he really knows this man at all. They’re so close, but Sherlock has always been distant, out of reach, separate from humanity in his own way, his thoughts indecipherable.

  
They don’t really talk about these things; sure Sherlock shares his deductions, his opinions, his persona, and even his thoughts to a limited degree with the world; with John, but not ever his feelings or emotional responses.

  
John does know Sherlock, but he’s always felt that he only knows part of him, that he’s not yet started to scratch the surface of this complicated man. He doesn’t think he ever will, or if it’s even possible.

  
His genius sets him apart, but it sort of isolates him at the same time, and it’s hard, even for John, to think about him as simply mortal; a finite human being susceptible to the same hormones, sentiments, and basic chemical reactions as everybody else.

  
But he can’t say this to Sherlock now, in this tense moment, he knows it likely wouldn’t go down well.

  
John’s uneasy with Sherlock bringing this up, he doesn’t like the way he’s looking at him now, searching John’s face for answers he doesn’t have.

  
This is important to Sherlock, John realises; because it’s truly a scary thought, to think that maybe your friends, the people who know you best, don’t really know you at all. It must be lonely.

  
Sherlock looks away sharply, leaving John with a sense of having failed him.

  
“I don’t hate sentiment because it’s merely an inconvenience to me, the failing of others being inflicted upon me,”  
  
  
Sherlock is sad, openly so, and John watches him in profile as he speaks from very far away.

  
“I see from an outside perspective the pointless suffering it creates, I know intellectually how irrelevant it is, how distracting, how damaging. Sentiment is a detrimental flaw to logic and reason. People often assume that just because I choose not to feel, because I have a heightened ability to detach myself, that I am incapable of doing so.”

   
He takes a deep breath, his whole posture resigned, making him look tired, older somehow.

   
“No, I detest sentiment precisely because I _do_ feel it. I am just as susceptible to it as the next person, even though I can see what it does, it’s a weakness John; an impediment, too easily taken advantage of, and not one I can afford. Do you understand? It is because I can overlook these emotions that I have the ability to do the things I do. But even I cannot escape them entirely.”

   
There is another shaky pause.

  
“Because sometimes…I am not infallible John, and as much as I’d like to be, I’m not immune. I experience the same things you do, I _can_ …feel emotion. In the end, I am forced to suffer as much as the rest of you are.”

  
He looks away, ashamed at the confession.

  
John is floored, it’s not that he didn’t know Sherlock had emotions, of course he did, logically, and unlike other people he does know that Sherlock cares, that he has a heart. But to hear him admit it, to actually have the discussion, to say the words out loud, to stop and take a moment to think about it is…overwhelming.

  
Sherlock is still deliberately not looking at him; uncomfortable, and tense as a coiled spring.

  
John wonders if Sherlock is worried that he won’t see him the same way, which is ridiculous. It is as if he feels that by this revelation some of the mystery, the magic surrounding him is gone, that John will experience the same disappointment and loss of interest you feel when a magic trick is explained to you and it ceases to be clever and brilliant, instead becoming; simple, boring, obvious.

   
John knows Sherlock isn’t a bloody super hero, and he hasn’t put him on some impossible pedestal, worshiping the ground he walks on, he likes to think himself far more grounded than that.

  
“I never doubted that Sherlock, not for a moment, even when you were gone and people were saying all those things…I never doubted you.”

  
John could never see Sherlock that way, not ever. He hadn’t even contemplated it, what everyone else gladly believed, Sherlock was no fraud. He may not know everything about the man, but he knows who he is, and he is the only one he’s ever believed in.

  
Sherlock turns to look at him, his eyes watery, framed with red, and John hates how grateful he looks, like he should ever have to be grateful for that, for someone knowing that he’s human.

  
John smiles fondly, “Of course I know that you mad bastard.”

  
Sherlock chuckles, but something is nagging persistently in the back of John’s mind, and his curiosity gets the better of him;

  
“Why are you telling me this, why now?”

  
And just like that, the smile slips from his face.

  
“How do you stop them John?”

  
John frowns, concerned at the childlike element in Sherlock’s voice, “Stop what?”

  
“The nightmares. I keep having them, since I got back, every night, and it’s _awful,_ they won’t go away. How do I make them go away?”

  
He can see it now; Sherlock is exhausted. Something has been off with him, but John hadn’t been paying enough attention, unable to place it, or where it started. If he looks back it’s clear, it’s been this way since Sherlock came back, but John was too angry and self-centred to notice.

   
“You don’t,” John shrugs, “honestly there’s nothing much you can do to stop them, not sleeping isn’t an option, even for you, your body desperately needs the rest, especially if your sleep is interrupted. For me it was keeping busy, that helped, and the uh, the violin, you playing, that helped as well.”

  
Sherlock closes his eyes in resignation, that hadn’t been what he’d wanted to hear, he’d been hoping for a quick fix, impatient as always.

  
“But they do go away, in time, I’m proof of that, and you get better at managing them. The trick is to force yourself to go to sleep even when you don’t want to, medication and sleep deprivation will only make them worse.”

  
Sherlock nods stiffly at the carpet.

  
“Can I…Can I ask what they’re about?” John wants to know, but he’s got this ball of dread forming under his ribcage, and again he wants to know and he doesn’t at the same time.

  
For a moment he doesn’t think Sherlock’s going to answer, but he sighs, scrubbing his hands down his face and through his curls.

  
“From when I was away. I got…reckless towards the end, just wanted to get back and well, I got caught.”

  
John inhales sharply; Moriarty’s men got hold of him. He knows what that means, he knows what the look in Sherlock’s eyes means; capture; _torture_. How did he not see? He was a doctor, an army doctor for god’s sake.

  
“How bad?”

  
Sherlock glances at him quickly before his eyes dart back to the carpet.

  
“Bad.”

  
“How did you get out?”

  
“I didn’t,” Sherlock chuckles ruefully, and then in explanation; “Mycroft.”

  
He’d kiss Mycroft Holmes right now if he wasn’t too preoccupied by the idea that Sherlock hadn’t been able to get _himself_ out.

   
How bad must it have been for Sherlock to be need of rescue, Sherlock of all people, battered and helpless? His mind can’t help but imagine it, and the imagery makes him shiver in horror.

  
“Do you want to talk about it?” John asks, careful to keep his voice neutral. He knows he mustn’t push it, no matter how badly he wants to know, Sherlock needs to deal with this on his own time.

  
“Not particularly, no. There are scars though.”

  
_Scars_.

  
Of course there are scars. Fuck.

  
He wants to see, to assess the damage, to make them go away, to heal them, leaving Sherlock’s skin smooth and undamaged again.

  
He hates that they exist, and he has the overpowering urge to find every last one of the people who inflicted them and make them suffer, make them rue the day they ever dared to lay a finger on Sherlock Holmes.

  
“Okay, that’s fine; you don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to. Actually, you look like you could use some sleep mate, want to turn in?” John suggests, Sherlock really looks buggered.

  
Sherlock grimaces at the idea of sleep, and John can see his body’s need for rest warring with his reluctance to face his dreams.  
  
  
“If you want, I could come with you? Some people find it helps, you know, with the nightmares.”

  
It’s true, and he offers because he knows Sherlock needs it, but would never ask. To his surprise, Sherlock nods appreciatively before rising to shuffle down the hall; dead on his feet.

  
John might not be able to read Sherlock's mind, but he can see what he needs, and whatever else has happened, he can help with this.

  



End file.
